


Meg

by Apostrophic



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, No Angst, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s11e10 My Struggle IV, Post-Season/Series 11, Pregnancy, just love, mulder and scully deserve happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 07:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19079935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apostrophic/pseuds/Apostrophic
Summary: He had lived with grief long enough to learn you did not ignore happiness whenever it came.Two scenes, one before and one after a tiny someone makes three. Post-season 11. I’m coining the tag “no angst, just love.”





	1. Before

Mulder stretched awake, turning his face to the pillow, trying to chase a few more minutes of sleep. Scully had been up an hour ago, which meant he had an hour before she’d be up again. He supposed they should get used to it, sleeping in two hour increments, given what was coming in another two months. Scully, more pragmatic, had told him he could sleep on the couch or she could sleep on the couch if she woke him up too often during the night. “Hell no,” he’d said, emphatic. He’d begun to do that again, state things emphatically the way he used to. She transparently liked it. He added more. “We’re a team, you and me.” That earned him a kiss until he mumbled against her and intermissioned the kiss to fight a bad yawn. The yawn won, only briefly. “We can still be a _practical_ team,” Scully said then, and he shook his head, nope, when she finally laid his head back down on the pillow. “Since when are we practical?” he asked her sincerely, and tucked her new, heavy body next to his own. 

That had been weeks ago. He had adjusted quite well, his old insomniac habits giving him years of experience. He only grumbled when it served him well to echo her grumbles. “ _You_ try to get comfortable,” she’d say, moving around, “when you have a bladder the size of a teaspoon.” If he was annoyed, he’d commiserate with her. More often than not, though, he’d say something ridiculous, like, “Oh my God, Scully, that’s so hot, come here,” because then she would laugh or give him a shove or put a pillow over his face, but then return from the bathroom to curl up against him, resting her head and her belly like he was her pillow, and he’d try to recall something else in his life that made him feel more necessary than that. 

Those were his favorite times, lately. The dark, in-between hours. It had been a long time since those hours contained peace. If Scully fell asleep quickly, her eyes closing almost before she laid her head down, sometimes he’d crawl down, lay his palm on her belly, whisper _hello, kiddo,_ and hold long conversations with the tiny creature who had its own heartbeat, who kicked and fluttered sometimes at the sound of his voice. One night, last week, Scully had woken, and he hadn’t realized she heard him until he crawled back up to the pillow and found it wet with her tears, her face streaked when she pulled him into her arms. Usually, though, both of them lay awake, even just for a few moments, feeling fierce and protective, slightly awed at this thing they cradled between them, barely as large as his hand and already exerting a mind of its own. 

He felt ready for this. He remembered, years ago, the hot, sticky panic he’d felt, unprepared and so certain he’d do everything wrong. And then things went so wrong he’d barely had the chance to do anything. This time, he felt none of that panic. He was ready. _They_ were ready. Scully, too, would admit it felt surreal. Theoretically, this was the pregnancy that was far more impossible, carried the far greater risk. The doctor had been unsparing, detailing what could go wrong. But no hot, sticky panic closed up his lungs like asthma. Scully’s palm had squeezed his, warm and fearless, unfazed, sitting there facing the doctor. Her pulse perfectly steady. 

They both knew. They just _knew._ They had been through too much, lost too much, feared too much— this would be the one thing they could not lose or fear. Everything would go right. Nothing in their lives indicated the universe worked that way, and yet nonetheless, they could not shake their certainty. “I don’t know, I just _know,_ ” Scully would whisper, and nothing else made more sense. He felt it just like she did, bone-deep and real. The way, he supposed, they had known twenty-five years ago the first time they laid eyes on each other.

Here, now, Mulder stirred. Dawn had started to break. He had another half hour before Scully would groan at her internal alarm, haul herself up out of bed. That gave him some time to open the quiet house, put on some coffee. Pick up the paper. Watch the sunrise out over the water, like he had swapped his own life with that of a stranger, some deeply unlucky stranger who’d gained freedom and solitude while Mulder gained everything else. 

That’s where Scully found him, nearly an hour later. He sat on the weathered front steps, nursing his second coffee, the sun up in the sky behind a patch of gray clouds. He folded the paper and set it aside when he heard her footsteps behind him, the squeak of the screen door that needed some oil. 

“Morning,” she said, her face practically buried in the steam from her coffee, still not awake. 

Mulder turned to look up. They had ten weeks to go yet, give or take exactly, and her pajamas had stopped straining their buttons long ago. She wore his t-shirts to sleep, and her robe had stopped tying around those shirts too, and it was his favorite sight every morning. 

“How are my girls doing?” he asked her, since his life would be short if he was going to stop saying things like that any time soon. 

“I won’t point fingers,” Scully said, pointing down to the swollen Knicks logo, “but one of us girls inherited her father’s legs.”

Mulder looked down at his legs. One knee bounced on its own from the early dose of caffeine and his own pent-up energy. He forced it to stop, the same time Scully gripped it for balance to ease herself down beside him. 

“Exactly,” she said. 

He patted her basketball, sticking out past her robe. “What’s she doing in there? Shooting free throws?”

“Trying to hatch an escape.”

Mulder leaned down to tell her, “Knock it off in there, all right, kiddo? We’re on your side.”

“You can break that habit too,” Scully said, always blunt before breakfast. But he caught the edge of her smile in spite of herself. 

“What habit?”

“‘Kiddo.’”

“Do you have a whole list of these things I should do?” 

“Yes,” Scully said. 

“Good. I’m unemployed now, I need some new hobbies.”

She leaned against him to rest her chin on his shoulder. He had lived with grief long enough to learn you did not ignore happiness whenever it came. He laid his arm on her knees, and they sat there a long time, Scully sipping her coffee, just watching the morning. The sun broke through a cloud, glimmering across the water. A gull swooped and dove. Maryland turned hot in June, but this time of day was still cool, a breeze tossing small waves in the wake of a boat out in the Chesapeake Bay. 

Scully’s chin turned on his shoulder to watch the side of his face. He watched the gull snatch up breakfast. 

“What would you like to do?” she asked. 

The day stretched before them. A daisy-chain of days like it, each threaded into the next. “Today?” he asked. “Tomorrow? For the next twenty years?”

“Yes,” she said. 

Mulder smiled. The house was still unfinished. Boxes stacked in the kitchen; none of his office unpacked. He didn’t feel a rush to do any of it. They had the big bed upstairs, and down the hall from that bed, another small bed, beneath stars stuck on the ceiling, the kind that glowed in the dark. He felt pretty close to having all that he needed.

He squeezed her knee, drank more coffee. A neighbor walked past, a black lab on a leash. They both waved when she waved.

“Let’s get a dog,” Mulder said. 

“Let’s do one thing at a time.” Scully rubbed the old t-shirt around on her belly, shifting to get more comfortable. He moved his hand up too, feeling his way until he found the small kick.

She took his hand, drew it up toward her ribcage. He felt the kick stronger. 

“Wow,” he said. “She’s really—”

“I know,” Scully said. 

“She’s feisty today.”

“She’s got your feet and your patience.”

“Hey,” Mulder said. 

Scully traded cups with him. She had emptied her own. 

“Uh-uh,” he said, lifting his cup out of her hands on the way to her mouth. “It has nothing to do with you mainlining caffeine?”

She reached for his cup again. He pulled it out of her reach. “Just one more sip,” Scully bargained. 

“You’re allowed one cup per day.”

“I’m a doctor,” she said.

Mulder knocked his head back, draining the last of the coffee. “There,” he said, generous, and gave the empty cup back. 

Scully stared at it forlornly. “I hate you,” she pouted. 

“You love me.” He kissed her. 

“Mmm,” Scully said, and kissed him again, holding the kiss a long time until he opened his mouth and let her all the way in. When she pulled back, her eyes shone like the sun on the water. She kissed him one more time, saying “Coffee,” and licking the taste off his lips.

Mulder rolled his eyes and laughed at her and brushed off his jeans as he got to his feet. “C’mon,” he said, ready to go in, the sun hot in the sky and his stomach growling for breakfast and his back aching from the uncomfortable perch. He pulled her up to her feet, not letting go of her hand as he led the way up the steps. “Ooh,” Scully said, “wait,” and he turned back to look. 

“Nope. C’mon,” Mulder said. A guy jogged down the street shirtless. Crewcut, muscled, tattooed. 

“I want him,” she said when Mulder pulled her along. 

“You want anybody that moves. And you’ve got me right here.” He reached over his head to hold the screen door open. 

Scully stopped beneath his arm. She appraised him up and down, licking and biting her lip. “Yeah, okay,” she said finally, the opposite of reluctant. 

“That’s the spirit.” He grinned. “Stop ogling the neighbors.”

“Stop knocking me up. You can’t handle the hormones.”

“I’ll show you ‘can’t handle.’” He pointed upstairs.

Her face brightened so quickly that even she had to laugh. Mulder was shaking his head.

“You’ll be the death of me yet, one way or another,” he said under his breath, making sure that she heard him.

“Just last ten more weeks, I’m gonna need you around,” Scully said over her shoulder, her turn to pull him along.


	2. After

Mulder came awake at the sound of a wail. So much for adrenaline surging through him at a sign of distress. Adrenaline was long gone. Distress was so routine it barely registered as a cause for alarm. He waited a moment to see if the wail would stop, then pushed himself up on his elbows, rubbing his face, too tired to open his eyes or stumble up any faster. Beside him, Scully turned her face on the pillow and groaned. 

“I’ve got her,” he said. 

“She’s hungry,” Scully mumbled into the pillow, drifting back off to sleep. 

“Stay here. I’ll get her.”

Catching the bed for balance, Mulder crawled up to his feet. He went by feel, out the door, down the wall, into the next door. Light fell through the window against all advice they had read— blackout curtains, cardboard, duct tape, and tinfoil had all been prescribed, and Mulder had finally discovered the corner of the internet more paranoid than conspiracists. Then again, months of sleep deprivation and paranoia began to make sense. The moon hadn’t been up two hours ago, and it took him a moment to realize that it was the source of the silvery light, branches casting new shadows, tossing outside in the wind. 

The wail had become a plaintive, desolate howl. “There now,” Mulder said around a huge yawn, leaning over to pick up the squalling infant. Her face was purple with rage, puffy, contorted, mouth gaping so wide he could see her vocal cords shake. “Ssh ssh ssh,” he said loudly, tucking her into his shoulder. The little body hitched a sob, gathered strength, and then bawled into his neck at the injustice of it all. 

“I know. I know. It’s not fair.” She only sobbed harder, unconsoled by his soothing. He did the quick diaper change, he tickled her stomach and blew the raspberry kiss that she liked so much, he did the first verse of “Hound Dog” in his best Elvis voice. She would have none of it. She only bawled louder and longer and harder until Scully crawled sleepily up on the pillow and held out her arms, the top of her pajamas unbuttoned. She took her daughter, kissed her and soothed her and tucked her in one arm up to her breast.

“Yeah, sure, now she’s happy,” Mulder said, pitching face-first beside them, not even reaching his pillow, for a quick power nap. 

He could sleep anywhere. It was the new skill he’d acquired, several decades past due. The other day he had slept while standing in line at the deli, until the woman behind him tapped his arm and pointed where the line had moved up. He had slept in the car while it was parked in the driveway. Here, now, Scully laid her hand on his head, lightly stroking her fingers, and along with the absence of crying, that was the only inducement he needed to fall fast asleep. 

He woke up to small kicks. Scully had switched sides, and a pair of tiny feet in pajamas had discovered they could happily reach his upper arm. He took a few of the frog-kicks, then reached out in the dark, caught a small foot and ate it, which made the little legs jump with even more happiness, contentedly nursing away with soft, smacking sounds. 

Mulder reached for a pillow. He pulled it down and stuffed it under his head, stretching out on his side. His daughter watched this, more willing now to accommodate his intrusion now that food was filling her belly. He touched that full belly, small and warm to the touch and impossibly soft. “Hey there,” he whispered to her, rubbing her green frog pajamas. Her little chest heaved a sigh. He touched her soft cheek, still flushed and streaked from the bout of rage-crying, her eyes holding his gaze, mouth still working away.

That had changed the past weeks. Right in front of their eyes, she had lost that red-faced, pinched look of a bleary-eyed newborn. No one was cute at two weeks, not even his daughter. But a few months changed everything. She had filled out, learned to focus. She could lay there for hours communicating in soft squeaks and coos, absorbing things that he showed her. She liked his hands, hated wind chimes. Blew wet bubbles and grinned when he flubbed at her lips. He and Scully brought home an implacable creature and then one day woke up to find a real, tiny human. One who had frowns and giggles and her own strong opinions about how the world worked.

“Yeah, that’s you,” Mulder said, keeping his voice at a whisper, curling the finger she held in one tiny fist. He moved his hand in the dark, slowly flexing his fingers to give her something to watch. Her gaze stuck there a moment, absorbed in what he was doing, but then she blinked and went back to staring up at his face. 

“She has your eyes,” Scully said, smoothing down a stray wisp of hair that had begun turning red, and both heads looked up at the sound of her voice. Mulder hadn’t thought she was watching. He figured she had dozed off.

“Babies’ eyes usually change color,” he said, curling his fingers again like he performed magic tricks, provoking a shuddery sigh from his daughter. Scully helped her latch back on.

“No, I meant your eyes,” Scully said. “The way you don’t miss anything. She watches things like you do.”

He should be immune to it now, the deep swell of love in his chest. He wasn’t immune. All he could do for a moment was ride the wave of it, lay there watching and listening. Their breaths in and out, the content smacks and sighs, the wind rustling the trees. 

“Was William like this?” he finally let himself ask. His heart still squeezed at the way things could have been different, if—

_If._

Scully took a long time to answer. “Not really,” she said. “He was quiet like this, like the way she is right now, but— he barely cried. Ever. Even this young. He kept things inside. You never knew what he was thinking.” She brushed the soft little cheeks that were streaked with salt from hot tears. The matted lashes looked up. So fondly, Scully said to her daughter, “You’ve got a temper.”

“A strong sense of injustice,” Mulder amended, curling his finger into the small palm. The lashes looked down. 

“Like your father,” said Scully, the same time he said, “Like your mother.”

“Wait,” they both said, and smiled in the dark.

“You’re screwed, kid,” Mulder whispered, with more pride and affection than he would have thought possible, catching the tiny toes that batted his chest. “Us two as parents? The odds are against you.”

“You’ll never admit that you’re wrong,” Scully counseled her wisely.

“You’ll rarely ever be wrong,” Mulder amended that too. 

“You’ll be impossibly stubborn.”

“You’ll never abide by the rules.” He looked up at Scully. “You’ll fight to the bitter end.”

“Because we like those long odds,” Scully whispered, pressing the words with her kiss against the warm little head. And then she had to laugh softly at the smack on her chest from the little warm hand. 

“All right. Meal time’s done.” She shifted their bodies apart, buttoning up her pajamas. “You want to take her?” she asked, and the legs frog-kicked again as Mulder held out his arms. Scully passed him their daughter, stifling a yawn, returning her body to the pile of soft pillows. 

Mulder caught the yawn too. “Don’t wait up. We’ll be—” He trailed off, Scully nodding, her eyes already closed. He eased them both out the door, pulling it shut again, quiet. 

This was their time of night, the late hour when they prowled, letting Scully sleep undisturbed. Even dead on his feet, Mulder wouldn’t trade a warm bed for the eyes of his daughter at three o’clock in the morning when he stood at the window and pointed out at the moon. It glimmered over the water. Leaves had turned orange, starting to fall, the October air cool.

Scully was right, he thought now, looking out through the glass. The gray weathered house with both their names on the deed. The yard that sloped off toward the water, the porch swing that creaked, the wall of windows that let in afternoon light. She had needed it first, but he had needed it more— to break free, to get clear. Sixteen years was enough. Sixteen years in the house that was supposed to be temporary. It was the longest in his life that he’d lived in one place. By far the longest in hers. They had outgrown it at last, the dark shadows, old ghosts.

He had thought it would be a betrayal. Instead, it felt right. It was time for their lives to take on a new shape. It wasn’t escaping the past; it was what Scully said, a leap of faith, staking claim to a future. They were here. They had made it. They were free and clear this time, no longer running from anything. Not even themselves. Life had held one more surprise for them, one more chance, one more hope. One more impossible miracle. That impossible miracle made a sound of distress, rubbing her face on his shirt, already tired of the moon. 

Mulder cupped her soft skull, breathing her in. He sent out the one prayer, the last of his religion that felt like more than just faith. He knew what miracles were. They were like knowing and waiting, defying the odds, more hope than fear. _I know you’re out there. Come home. We’re right here when you’re ready._

The little chest heaved a sigh, so aggrieved and familiar, shuddering safe in his arms. “I love you, kiddo,” he whispered, not even close to a secret. He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t tell your mom I said that. ‘Kiddo.’”

Her response was a yawn. Their reflections moved in the glass. Her head bobbed, sleepy, heavy, and he tucked her in closer, rocking them back and forth, watching the boats on the water. 

“Margaret,” he said. 

She was resisting again, fighting sleep til the end. He uncurled her fist from his collar, switching her weight around, cradling her down in his arms. 

“Margaret,” he lulled her, calming her with his voice. The old rhyme came back out of nowhere, the nonsensicality of it. “Bo-bargaret,” he said. “Banana fanna fo-fargaret.” She stretched, struggled, yawned. “Fe-fi-mo… Margaret.”

Samantha had loved it, torturing him for hours with the sing-song rhyme of their names. He hadn’t done it in decades. “Fox,” he said now, nodding down at himself, even though an infant couldn’t follow that logic, nor would she call him by that name. He did his name anyway. Fox Fox, bo-box. When he reached the end, he was smiling, no longer ten years old, hands clapped over his ears, trying to clobber his sister. 

“She loved that too,” he whispered down to his daughter, who was succumbing to sleep. Fifty years later, he might never be whole, but this was as close as he’d come, and it was far closer than he’d ever fathomed was possible. 

He traced the little slope of the nose that took after the Scullys. Then the little crease of the frown that took after the Scullys. Then the little dip of the mouth that took after him. 

“Meg,” he said then, turning to cross the room. Keeping his hushed, sing-song voice. “Meg, Meg. Bo-beg. Banana fanna…” 

The little rhyme climbed the stairs with them. The house creaked, the moon glimmered. Within a few dozen steps, all three souls in the house would be fast asleep.


End file.
